Malrand nodded. “A lot of people were killed at Terrasson.”
“But not this man Marat.”
“No, Marat died at the cave during an argument over some British guns. They were ours, and he tried to steal them for the Communist Party, probably to be used in some future attempt to seize power. There was a shootout and Marat was killed, along with a Russian who was with him, a couple of Spanish Communists, and tragically the American officer who was with us, McPhee.”
Lydia felt her mouth fall literally open. Clothilde sat down with a thump. Malrand simply sipped reflectively at his champagne and lit a cigarette.
“That’s the great secret. I didn’t want the cave open because it’s still a grave. And when those bodies come out, the scandal would have ended my career.”
“Your father and I survived, along with Lespinasse’s father,” he went on, breathing out a long plume of smoke. “That’s why he’s here. Quite a family reunion. Anyway, first I think I ought to give you this. Your father wrote it, and entrusted it to me. I wrote a similar account, and gave it to him. My version was sent back to me after his death by his lawyer, in a sealed envelope bearing the instructions that it should be sent to me in the event of his death. Here is his. He wrote it in this very room.”
He went to the desk, opened a drawer and handed Manners a slim brown envelope with a blob of red sealing wax on the flap. Manners ripped it open, and began reading aloud:
To whom it may concern:
This statement describes events which I witnessed at the cave at la Ferrassie, outside Le Bugue, on the night of June 9-10, 1944, as a captain in the British Army attached to the Special Operations Executive and working with the French Resistance. Along with Colonel Malrand of the Free French forces, and Captain James McPhee of the United States Army, we had gone to the cave to recover a cache of arms which we had stored there after German forces interrupted a parachute drop at Cumont nearby. I found the cave by chance, after German mortar fire knocked down a tree and opened the entrance. The guns were being appropriated by a leader of the FTP Resistance organization known as Marat, a devout Communist who had fought in Spain. Marat was accompanied by a Russian agent and two Spanish Communists. Determined to appropriate the guns, they attacked us, and in the subsequent shooting, Lieutenant McPhee was killed along with a French Resistance fighter attached to Colonel Malrand’s unit known to me only as Florien. Marat and his team were all killed. We left the bodies in the cave, sealed it with explosives, and took the weapons to Terrasson, where they were used in the attempt to deny the road to the SS Das Reich division. The cave was found to contain a number of remarkable wall paintings, probably many thousands of years old. In view of the highly charged political situation at that time in the war, Colonel Malrand and I took the view that it would be irresponsible to the Allied war effort to publicize the murder of an American officer by Communist militants, including a Russian agent, in their attempt to steal weapons. We took this decision on our own responsibility, and now make this written statement to affirm our joint wish that the existence of the cave and its remarkable paintings, along with the tragic events of that night, should be made publicly known after our deaths.
Signed, John Philip Manners
Witnessed, Francois Malrand Herve Lespinasse
Manners then unfolded the second sheet of paper from his father’s letter, a rough sketch map of the cave’s location, showing Cumont, la Ferrassie, and the track between them.
“I believe we must have come very close to it,” he said, handing the map to Lydia with a smile.
“Tell me about the paintings,” said Clothilde.
“I imagine you’ll see them soon enough,” said Malrand. “But you will be gratified to learn that your theory is right. La Marche cave is not the only place where prehistoric man left images of human faces. It contains portraits, one of a man, the other of a woman. They are extraordinary. I have never been able to forget them. There is also a landscape, with animals depicted among trees and rocks and a sky, which I found very beautiful.”
“I suppose I can understand why the two of you decided to keep the cave and the shootings a secret during the war when the Russians were still our allies,” said Lydia. “But why afterward, during the cold war?”
“Politics, I’m afraid. I had embarked on a political career, and with French Communists getting twenty percent of the vote, I would not have had much future as a Gaullist who had shot some. And then there was the complication of the dead American. And for your father, my dear Major, a career in the British Army would not have been helped by getting involved in that kind of French political mess. It was not very brave, but I still think it was wise. We decided to let sleeping dogs lie. It was what you Americans call a cover-up.”
“And now?” said Clothilde.
“I’m not sure,” said Malrand. “I think I’ll leave it up to you. You can open the cave, publicize the paintings, revolutionize all our theories about art and prehistoric man, and provoke an interesting political drama, perhaps even a crisis here in France. The newspapers and the opposition will have a wonderful time. And I suppose it will increase the value of my memoirs.”
“What do you want to happen?” Lydia asked him. She felt somehow that there was something missing from the story, something on which she could not put her finger, but that did not ring true. Malrand seemed too comfortable with all this, like someone retiring tactically to a reliable second line of defense after the first one had broken. At the same time, if he were getting away with something, she didn’t really mind. She had developed a soft spot for the old boy.
“I have been thinking about that for a long time,” said Malrand. “I want two things, and the first is that we should all now climb into the car, and I will take you to the cave site. Then I’ll tell you the second.”
This time they all piled into a single limousine. Lespinasse drove, Manners sat beside him, and Malrand had somehow managed to place himself in the back with a woman on either side. He looked very pleased with himself. They parked at la Ferrassie, and Malrand led the way, Lespinasse coming after with a large picnic basket from the trunk of the car. It was a brisk climb, but the old man seemed infused with energy and set an urgent pace. Finally they came out, as Lydia had suspected from the sketch map, on the same green sward where she and Manners had disported themselves so delightfully the previous day. She caught his eye and tried one of Clothilde’s winks. He blushed. Good.
“Here we are,” said Malrand. “I come here from time to time. It’s a lovely spot. The first time was with your two fathers, in September of 1944, after they had liberated Toulouse and got me out of prison. We collected all the cartridge cases, and tidied up the mound of rocks, over there behind that leaning tree.”
Lespinasse opened the picnic basket, and took out a small silver tray, some flutes, and a bottle of champagne. The cork popped noisily, and he poured five glasses. One for himself, Lydia noted, approvingly.
“Was that the tree that was blown aside by the German mortar?” asked Manners, strolling across to it, as Lespinasse served the champagne.
“Yes, and still alive. I suppose the taproot gets water.” The tree seemed to emerge from a large, grass-covered mound. There was no sign of fissure in the rock.
“Well, a toast to your dear father, and may he rest in peace, along with yours, Lespinasse,” said Malrand, sipping and surveying the grass, the trees, the sky, as if it were simply marvelous to be alive on such a day.
“You were going to tell us the second thing you wanted, Francois,” said Lydia, her curiosity too insistent to be silent.
“Yes, I was,” he said slowly. “I spent a lot of time dreading that this tale would come out, and now it has, I’m not sure it will be so bad after all. And above all, I think I want to look at the portraits of our ancestors, that first Frenchwoman and Frenchman, those first children of Perigord, once again before I die.”
He strolled over to the grassy mound and rested his hand against the leaning tree.
>
“I particularly want to see her again, the woman of the cave. I have carried a great tendresse for that woman since 1944. So did my English friend, your father. And the older he got, as we sat up late at night and talked about it all, the more he seemed to confuse her with his Sybille. Or the more they seemed to come together in his mind. And you can appease an old man’s vanity by confirming or refuting something that has nagged me for over fifty years. Something your father said, Lespinasse, about the portrait of the man looking rather like me. I’d feel very honored if it were true.”
He raised his glass in salute to the mound. “To them, our ancestors, whoever they were,” he said, and drank.
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The Caves of Perigord Page 37